Paint The Town Noir, Videophiles

GET OUT - If you liked that, try this

April 24, 1998

If you missed it in the theaters, you can now find best-picture nominee L.A. Confidential in video stores. (Or if you saw it and loved it, it's there waiting for you to see it again.) While you're there, why not explore the genre a little further - with crime classics of the 1950s? Or how about a taste of a more modern noir that also uses a flashy West Coast backdrop? Director Jean-Luc Godard's 1959 Breathless tells the story of a Parisian hood and the American girlfriend who turns on him when it's convenient; the film heavily influenced American cinema in the 1960s. Another fast-moving film that relies on quick cuts and a nervous, edgy style is Stanley Kubrick's 1956 The Killing, which centers on a racetrack robbery. Made in 1974, Roman Polanski's Chinatown is a nostalgic thriller in the style of Hammett and Chandler that draws on the history of L.A. for its story.